in the studio

Via huffpost and Stucky Art, cartographer and artist Jerry Gretzinger has spent the last fifty years (and for the next twenty, plans to continue) sketching and painting a map for a fictional world.  An online version here.  I think it's called Ukrania, but I'm not sure.

vegetable sandwiches

Imagination's the limit with vegetable sandwiches.  Or very simply such with any number of choices, remembering, for example, Harriet the Spy's tomato recipe.  A purist example.  The point being, who says you have to use tomatoes?  Or who says you have to use portobello?

Or just make a salad, put it in some crusty bread, and crack open a red wine.  (Harriet's grown up, of course.)

#daydetroit

The internet rallies to save the Detroit Art Institute.  As I joined in the virtual "march" - which you can view on twitter at #DayDetroit (and better yet, also participate), I couldn't take my eyes off the museum's Paul McPharlin Puppetry Collection (example, photo left), "one of the most significant collections of historical puppets in the United States."

Check out more here, here,  here, and here.

Ouch, the DIA also houses Howdy.

 What has become of us when our nation's most prized art collections are scattered to the winds?

Here are some of my picks from among the more traditionally smitten favorites;  a detail from Diego Rivera's Detroit Industry;  Bourguereau's hazelnut gatherers;  Paul Cézanne's bathers.


More news on this sad state of affairs from Rachel Maddow:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

ferris wheels

A photostream of the world's coolest ferris wheels (well, some of ). 

More here at wiki where it says that "pleasure wheels" turned by men may have originated in 17th century Bulgaria.  To the left, an Adam Olearis (1599-1671) 17th century engraving depicting an early Turkish design for what was also known as an "up and down."  The pleasure wheel has been traced to communities in Romania, India, and Siberia, eventually arriving in England and Europe.  Antonio Manguino introduced the first American idea of the ferris wheel with a wooden "pleasure wheel" at his start-up fair in Walton Springs, Georgia.  The original 1893 "Ferris Wheel," also known as the "Chicago Wheel," was designed and constructed by American engineer George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.

back of the mike

A Jim Handy short providing "an insider's view" of the sound effects from a 1930s radio show.  Back of the Mike moves back and forth between the visual scene in a listener's imagination and the actions taking place in the old time radio studio.  From shaggylocks who recommends you "watch it the second time with your eyes closed." 

street fashion

This NYC photo with basic black.